


use you as a focal point

by joeysnowy



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Secret Samol 2020, sad sad bisexuals, sorry for imperialist milf crimes, there's a """"timeline"""" but like hell if i understand it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29115000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeysnowy/pseuds/joeysnowy
Summary: Crysanth Kesh and Sovereign Immunity (or Lawrence, or the Farmer, or Byron, or whatever other names he will call himself in due time) will never get the chance to dance. But they learn their own dances.
Relationships: Crysanth Kesh/Sovereign Immunity
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	use you as a focal point

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for my secret samol gift for miranda @f1eabagg (who i was so so delighted to get as my giftee, you don't even KNOW) for her prompt "Crysanth/S.I in the height of their Pride and Prejudice-esque love/hate relationship pre-PARTIZAN. Think ball-room dancing, charged looks across the room, the terrible sense of dramatic irony knowing how their relationship ends up." fantastic prompt ugh i loved writing this so much. i told myself i would watch p&p at some point during this process but ended up watching emma 2020 instead and still managed to churn out this fic, because oh how i love to make up things about faux regency. as to the question of "where does this even fit within the partizan timeline, joey" uhhhhhhhm haha good question i hope you enjoy!!!!!!!!!
> 
> title is from amber run's "i found", because i loooove to make myself sad

Kesh dances are stuck-up, often prudish, and downright annoying most of the time, and Crysanth Kesh thinks that dance is a wretched thing. “It’s contrived and ridiculous, and anyways I have better things to do,” she scoffs to anyone who doesn’t know any better than to ask her to dance. If she has a small crowd to attend to, they titter eagerly; if she doesn’t, she hears snickering around her anyways. The spurned partner blanches, horribly certain they have just made the worst mistake, and rushes off to find some other boozy-filled dancing swill looking for a nicer night.

Not Crysanth. No, Crysanth has never found herself so full of bourgeois ennui that she might stoop so low.

It’s not that she finds dances inelegant. Far from it, honestly. Crysanth enjoys watching the movements of the dance from the balcony— in, out, in, turn, allemande, pull, swing,  _ again _ — but she has not yet captured the ability of moving her body to that same rhythm everyone else does. It jars against her, and she’ll take three steps forward when she was only supposed to take one, or grab the arm of her partner instead of her opposite, and someone has to correct her and she’ll flush, embarrassed yet again at her own ungainliness. Dancing makes her look a fool, nevermind that half the nobles in the room wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning and the other half barely register on her radar. 

(The other part, too, is one she will never admit to herself— that a ballroom dance requires two people, not one, and for all her time and energy spent “making connections” she’s never once found anyone she knew well enough to dance with.) 

So she settles for watching the dance from above, sipping on her champagne and dully wondering if there’s any of those little vegetable plates left. She’s done her bit of the politicking and chatter, made note of who’s here to push their way into the social scene of the nobility of the Principality, who wants to make connections, and who just needs to make an appearance for appearance’s sake. Already Crysanth’s laughed at five unfunny jokes, paid compliments to three ugly fashion tastes, made a threat without explicitly threatening, and had to turn down two offers for more champagne. (A rule of Kesh: never drink from another’s cup if you can help it.) She glared at anyone who even thought about making a motion toward her when a dance ends; it had been enough to make the rest of them steer clear. Now she’s just waiting until it’s polite enough for her to make a quiet exit, something she estimates she can make in about 30 minutes from now, Principality standard. Her head throbs.

She leans on the railing without slouching, her bodice a constant reminder to keep her back straight. The dance ends, and she watches the figures bow to their partners, most smiling and panting hard, flushed from the speed of it. 

“Enjoying the view?” she hears behind her, and a figure comes up to the railing next to her. She doesn’t have to look to know who it is, but she casts a glance anyways— Sovereign Immunity and his strong brow, nose like a crag, the robes that he’s never once made look as frumpy as they must be. 

“Tuning it out,” says Crysanth, and it’s the most honest thing she’s said all night. She sighs, rolling her neck and wincing at the crackle of bones. “I’ve got mountains of paperwork waiting for me in my rooms, and another damned meeting tomorrow. Those Whitestars always know how to get on my nerves, I swear.”

“Hm,” Sovereign says. He has a small plate of the veg sampler Crysanth had been eyeing at the start of the ball. Sovereign offers it to her when he notices her looking. “I think it’s a local root thing, they’re alright,” he says. She takes a small piece. It bursts on her tongue with a surprisingly bright and dry flavor. 

“Not bad,” she allows, and from the corner of her eye she sees his shoulders relax. “Are there any more? They can serve for my dinner for the night.”

“Oh, they were rolling out another platter when I grabbed these, but— Crysanth.” Sovereign’s brow is knit with a frown. “You should eat something more filling than a handful of veggie crisps.”

Crysanth tsks, waving away his concern. “I’ve survived on far less, believe me.”

“You should be having a meal, at least, something that’ll last. Come to my quarters later, I can have something brought up by the kitchen staff.”

“Sovereign Immunity, I don’t recall  _ being my mother _ in your job description—”

“No, but as your Sovereign Immunity I am supposed to protect you and keep you  _ alive _ .” He touches her shoulder and she freezes imperceptibly, though his hand has already withdrawn. “And as your  _ friend _ , I am asking you to take care of yourself.”

Crysanth exhales. “I have work to do,” she mutters, though it already sounds like a bad excuse.

“No one’s going to die tonight if this paperwork won’t get signed, Crysanth.” Sovereign smiles, knowing he’s succeeded. She admits to herself that she doesn’t mind the look on his face when he smiles—it’s a welcome break from all his somber monk-ness.

“They’ll just die tomorrow instead,” she says.

“Well,” says Sovereign. “You can’t win every battle.”

Crysanth blinks. “Who says I was trying to save them?”

He falls quiet at that. Crysanth takes another sip of her champagne and grimaces at the flatness. Below them, the dancers take their places once again, and the music plods into a slow waltz.

It’s strange, Crysanth reflects, the relationship they have. She has only traveled with a Sovereign Immunity for a few months now, and the acquaintance they’ve built up is nothing like the terse conversation she’s seen with nobles of her level and their own Sovereign Immunities. Other Sovereign Immunities are older than their charges, and able to offer advice on all sorts of things. They all seem to look through Crysanth whenever she encountered one; she had put off on asking for an assigned SI because their cold grey eyes made her shiver every time. But her Sovereign Immunity is around the same age as she is, and knows exactly what to say at the right time. Sovereign asks questions about her work like he actually means them; he cracks jokes to make her laugh and not just to make her endeared to him. He looks at her like he is actually looking at  _ her _ , not just Crysanth Kesh.

“Not one for dancing?” Sovereign asks. She shakes her head, tight.

“I’ve never seen the point. And anyway, you wouldn’t want to see me on the dance floor. I’m all elbows and gracelessness in a waltz.”

“Gracelessness? From Crysanth Kesh?” Sovereign’s eyebrows raise, and Crysanth snorts at him.

“Divines forbid my mother from ever finding out,” she says. Sovereign laughs.

“You know, maybe you’ve just never gotten proper instruction. I happen to know a perfectly passable version of what they’re doing right now.” He inclines his head towards the dance floor, which has somewhat devolved into a mess of sweaty swaying and twirling. “And perfectly passable is still honestly an improvement.”

Crysanth eyes his face, looking for the hidden request, a deal or trade deep in his brown eyes. She doesn’t find one. “I might take you up on that, if I find the time,” she says finally. “Perhaps you’ve got more to you than I realized, Sovereign Immunity.”

Sovereign shrugs, popping another veg sampler into his mouth. “I’ve learned a lot of things. You never know what might end up being useful.” His eyes don’t meet hers, skating across the room distractedly.

Crysanth turns her back to the ballroom floor. “Do let me know what those things are. Now that we’re working together, I’d love to find out more of your talents.”

“I will,” he says. As she passes him, he catches her elbow, and she stops. “And… if you’d like, Crysanth. You can call me Lawrence.”

She does not stare at his hand, warm and dry against her skin. “Of course… Lawrence. It suits you.”

He lets go of her arm. “I’ve always thought names have to fit a person well. Ill-fitting suits give bad impressions, you know?”

Crysanth Kesh, daughter of the Stel Kesh, smiles thinly. “I do know. I’ll see you for dinner, Lawrence.”

The dinner is… fine, all things considered. Crysanth does not let herself be so bold as to enjoy herself the first time around. But then so is the dinner after that, and the one after that, and then they’re off of the planet and travelling more and more, cleaning up loose ends for Kesh and arranging more things and Crysanth Kesh and Lawrence, her assigned Sovereign Immunity, continue to have dinner nightly. It becomes habit, almost, to retire to Lawrence’s rooms, not for anything beyond a dinner and a chat. He becomes a steady hand.

Crysanth Kesh and Sovereign Immunity (or Lawrence, or the Farmer, or Byron, or whatever other names he will call himself in due time) will never get the chance to dance. But they learn their own dances. They maneuver around each other in ways that no one else knows, and Crysanth finds herself breathless at the motions. A hand on his elbow, a turn around a corner. Black coffee set steaming when she wakes. A novel series he’d been looking forward to reading ordered to his door. He catches her when she stumbles. She pulls him up over his mistakes.

Her workload never lightens up, of course, but she finds that it becomes easier, over time, when she can look forward to the quiet conversations they have away from prying eyes.

The Principality moves endlessly, incessantly. Lawrence makes her laugh in ways she hadn’t realized she could laugh like again. Quietly, so quietly she doesn’t think anyone would think to even notice, Crysanth begins to establish the foundations of what she plans to call the Curtain. 

Something like this isn’t done suddenly. It will take her years, perhaps decades, to build up her own faction of sleight-of-hand in the way she wants. But with every passing day Crysanth itches under the thumb of Kesh, knows that too many eyes are watching her in the way that she hates. Crysanth wields power, yes, but it’s power that comes with a price she’s been aching to shed. 

They very rarely get time apart in the coming weeks, with Crysanth having meetings that stretch from the early hours of the morning to just after the dusk colors fade from the sky. Sovereign Immunity attends every meeting with her, a near invisible presence at her shoulder as she demurs and demands and drinks with ambassadors and nobles alike. It’s an exhausting process, one that makes her cheeks hurt from biting them raw, and she wishes (not for the first time) that politics were not such a people pleasing game, that she could control the big decisions with ink instead of her tongue. When Crysanth returns to her rooms, she falls into a tall armchair with an ungainly huff, fanning herself in the stuffy air. “Cannot stand that bitch,” she mutters. “ _ Generous _ my ass, she’s barely let go of any of her assets, she clings to them like a dragon on her hoard.”

Lawrence looks over from where he’s unlatching the windows, swinging them to let a cool draft in. “Which one would this be again?”

“The one with the foolish looking bows on her sleeves, as if that hasn’t been unfashionable since 1360,” Crysanth scoffs. She pulls off her boots with a sigh; today’s meetings had included a 3 hour luncheon that Crysanth had spent entirely on her feet in tense conversation with a representative from Columnar, and her ankles are paying the price. “You’d think that living on the most fashionable planet this side of the galaxy would teach her something about looking the part. Divines above, it’s hot in here,” she says, unfastening her top.

“No aircon still,” Lawrence grimaces apologetically, coming over to hover uselessly by her shoulder again while he pretends not to be reading her notes. Crysanth sighs, shoving her notescreen at him, and gestures at the chair across from her, annoyed at the pretense. 

“Pointless nonsense, as always,” she says, echoing her mother. Lawrence takes a careful seat and pulls the notescreen towards himself. They're written in a neat shorthand she’s perfected over the years, one that only a few people (Lawrence included) can read. She gazes out the window at the dark sky, and the corner of the Kesh Sphinx constellation peeking from behind a mountain. “What a bitch,” she says again, but her mind isn’t on the noble with the stupid bows anymore. The constellation haunts her, in her dreams, with its incessant gaze and inscrutable riddles, and she wishes she could scrub it from every Principality sky just to keep it from chasing her. “I hate her.”

“Mm,” Lawrence hums, still processing her notes. Absently, he bends down to pull her right ankle into his lap. Her head and shoulders stiffen, and she breathes lightly through her nostrils to try not to jerk her head, but he doesn't move to hurt her or disable her— just props her foot on his knee and begins to massage it gently. The small sound of relief she makes is nearly imperceptible, but his mouth still turns upwards all the same.

She isn’t used to— this. Crysanth has never pursued romantic needs, but she’s no stranger to having lovers— a person needs her creature comforts, after all. But every lover has known to arrive promptly when she asks, to satisfy her needs and not ask for anything more, to leave her bed early before she wakes. 

Lawrence is… something different. She hasn’t asked him to bed yet, and she isn’t sure how he’ll react if she does. But he knows things about her, things that she hadn’t even realized about herself: in the mornings, she finds her tablet and coffee arranged for her on the table to attend to; he will place a hot compress on a muscle she hadn’t yet realized was feeling tight; an order will be placed for her favorite shade of lipstick a week before it runs out. Lawrence pays attention, has been paying attention, and Crysanth hadn’t realized such scrutiny was on her until she faced it head on.

“You missed a person,” Lawrence says, hands not stilling in their careful motions on her ankle. “You’ve written that there were two Orion delegates, but there was a third. Xe entered after the addresses began.”

Crysanth curses, and snatches up the notescreen. “Sly  _ bastards _ ,” she says, scribbling a note in the margins. “I  _ told _ them to forward me a copy of their register, cc me if you must, or I’d have their  _ heads _ , and still I am left to keep tabs on everything as if I don’t already have my hands full…” She falls silent, scrolling through and editing her notes with a scowl. “Did you see anything xe did? Who xe talked to, if xe left and came back?”

“Not that I can remember,” Lawrence says. He puts her right ankle down and starts working on her other ankle. Crysanth bites the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood. “Most of xyr time was spent in the back. It honestly looked like xe was passing notes to the delegate.”

Crysanth’s nostrils flare. “ _ Notes _ ? Divines’ sake, Lawrence, notes are fucking importa—”

“Dirty notes,” Lawrence amends with a snort. “You know, I’ve never seen a squid person blush before? Not sure how I can describe it if you weren’t paying attention, but it was very amusing.”

Crysanth huffs and flops back into her chair, tossing the notescreen onto the table. “Fucking delegates,” she mutters darkly, staring off into a corner of the room. Her mind feels wrung out to its very edges; she has spent ages trying to make sure that everything in these series of meetings will go according to plan. 

“Crysanth,” Lawrence begins. She doesn’t look up at him. “You know you don’t have to do so much all at once. You’ve done solid work today, good work”—her lips twitch up in a humorless smirk—“and you’re going to get nowhere just— running yourself into the ground like this.” His hands are still resting on her ankle. Slowly, she breathes out through her mouth. “Just— let’s not talk about work for the rest of the night, maybe?”

Crysanth thinks, for a moment, about how much more work she could get done if she was left on her own. And then she remembers just how many tempers Sovereign Immunity has soothed, how many connections he’s already made for her and how many he’s in the process of making, and she shakes herself out of the thought.

“Right,” she says, and slips her foot out of his grasp. She levers herself out of the armchair, leaving Lawrence alone at the table staring at her notescreen. “You’re right, as always, Lawrence. No more work for tonight! I’ll ring for dinner, I think I’m in the mood for something fresh, aren’t you? Maybe fish? Or salad, something light will do. Can’t have dear Crysanth all bogged down and bloated for tomorrow, can we. And I’m sure someone has got to be able to fix this damned AIRCON!”

Change of subject, change of scenery. The door slams shut between them with a delicious bang, and Crysanth is tired enough to let it.

“And how’s your Sovereign Immunity, Crysanth? Well, I hope?”

The question comes from the face of a Nidean noble with simpering eyes and big lips, whose name Crysanth hasn’t bothered to memorize. She tries to hide the smile that curls at the use of the possessive.

“He’s adjusting to the environment, as we all are,” she says, casting a glance to the edge of the room where Sovereign Immunity stands. He listens intently to a short man waving pompously towards the room, but looks up to meet her eyes the second she lands them on him. Crysanth pretends like the shiver deep in her chest has more to do with the sheerness of her dress in the chilly aircon than anything else. She turns back to the noble.

“I’m afraid so much travel does terrible things to a complexion, but we’ve wonderful sources on skincare. And we are grateful to be able to attend to matters here, of course we are. You know, it’s been so long since I’ve been in this part of the galaxy, I’d forgotten how the sky looks at dusk. Nearly radiant,” she comments, and takes a sip of her drink. It’s mostly ice and citrus aftertaste at this point, and she makes a mental note to switch to wine after this.

“Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the noble says, and Crysanth hums. “Its reputation surely doesn't make it seem that way. I mean, it’s not like you  _ leapt _ for a chance to come here, did you?" Crysanth cocks an eyebrow at this, and the noble smiles, "Backwater moon in the middle of nowhere, half of it unlivable… But of course, with your mother dealing with… shall we say,  _ matters  _ elsewhere—”

Crysanth’s nostrils flare, and she whips her head to glare daggers down at the noble, who suddenly shrinks at the fierceness of her glare. “How  _ dare _ —” she hisses.

“Crysanth,” she hears, and a firm hand clasps her wrist. She doesn’t have to look to know who it is, and she bites her cheek in frustration as Sovereign Immunity brings his hand up to her elbow and leans to the noble. “If you’d excuse the interruption, I need Crysanth for a moment,” he murmurs, and the noble gives a nervous nod.

Once they’re well out of earshot, Sovereign Immunity pulls behind a column in the corner of the room. Crysanth yanks her arm out of his grasp. “I had it handled,” she says.

“You clearly didn’t,” Lawrence says in an undertone. The lighting in the ballroom flickers, and for a moment his face is tinted red. It makes his cheekbones more prominent, harsher, and Crysanth shakes herself angrily.

“I was about to  _ tell them _ , Lawrence,” she whispers. The flesh in her cheek gives way. She tastes blood.

“Tell them what? Tell them that you’re your own person, that you haven’t seen your mother in years? Or that you’re free from the weird grip she has on you, because I see the telegraphs you get, Crysanth, and they are not pretty.”

“I  _ don’t care. _ They had absolutely no right—”

“Be that as it may, you have better things to do than pick fights with every stupid noble that talks shit about your mother.” Lawrence has height on her by a few inches, but in this corner of the room he positively looms. He sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes wearily. “You aren’t twenty-three anymore, Crysanth, you don’t have time for this.” I  _ don't have time for dealing with your messes, _ she can hear him imply, and anger swells less at the thought of her creating messes but that she wouldn't be able to clean them up herself.

Crysanth draws herself up to meet his eyes fully. “I know what my job is, thank you very much,” she snaps. “It would do you well to remember yours, Sovereign Immunity.” 

His posture does not change, but she has watched him so carefully over the years— she knows how he pulls on loyalty over defeated shoulders like a well-worn coat. His jaw shifts quietly, and she resists the urge to put her hand there, to feel how his muscles move and tense. In the pale light, she swears his eyes almost look grey. “Of course, Crysanth,” says Sovereign Immunity, and he says it like an artform. 

It’s a rehearsed dance, how he offers his hand to her, how she places her elbow to guide him, how neither need to recompose themself before stepping back into the ballroom. They've done it countless times.

They say nothing to each other at all for the rest of the night, and Crysanth pretends like she enjoys the silence.

They keep going, despite it all. Crysanth lines up her chances like well-worn playing tiles and knocks them down, methodically, quietly. She picks her fights and ends them, and cleans herself up without saying a word to Sovereign Immunity. She does not play pretty. She plays well.

They get older, but they don’t get weaker. Lawrence’s beard grows patchy with grey, his eyes framed by thin lines that weren’t there years previous, but his hands never waver or shake. She notes, not for the first time, the way her heart thuds louder and stronger with every passing year. The skin on her long, pale fingers is still soft and supple, though her face in the mirror seems more and more pinched. She has always pretended to smile when friends of her mother fawned and told her she was “just the spitting image of Kesh”. “You look just like your mother when she was your age,” cried one, and Crysanth had bit her cheek to stop herself from saying a thing. As the years go by, however, Crysanth remembers with further clarity the expressions her mother had in her youth: she recognizes them on herself. 

(Her mother’s death was announced 4 months ago, but Crysanth suspects the actual act of kicking the bucket happened long before. Clever little way for any weaselly little somebodies to move things around without either her or her mother around to have to approve it. Naturally, when she heard, Crysanth came back to the Kesh homeplanet immediately to assume her mother’s position, to wipe away any last minute changes. and to scrub away any lingering fingerprints left in the rooms. She wore the ritualistic black, gave tense and grateful nods to the requisite funeralgoers, and clasped Sovereign Immunity’s hand tight.

She did not cry. Mourning has a strange way of moving us all.)

The shores on this planet are filled with black sand, and from atmosphere the continent looks like it’s lined with a dark marker. Crysanth is not foolish enough to let herself trace the landmass with her finger, but Lawrence sees her looking, and that is enough. Their schedule is jam packed as is, and she resigns herself to being cooped up indoors for their entire stay, but somehow Crysanth wakes up after a long, long night meeting (dry morning air, and she spots a small container of wax balm for her hands and lips on the bedside table) and Lawrence says, “Get dressed for walking. There’s a car waiting outside.”

She hurries to pull on something suitable; in her closet she finds a brown walking skirt and a tidy blouse, a long overcoat to keep her warm. The balm and her notescreen she tucks into her pockets, and she meets Lawrence at the door with a wide-brimmed hat in his hands and a small grin on his face. “All set?”

“I don’t suppose you plan on telling me where we’ll be going?” Crysanth says.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Lawrence says. “You already know.”

The roads on this planet are not very travelled, and so the car rattles with the manner of a machine on its deathbed. Crysanth rolls down the window and presses her face close to the wind; facing her, Lawrence glances up from his notescreen with a small smile. 

After two hours of jostling around, the car comes up to a small bluff, and Lawrence gets out. “C’mon,” he says, retrieving the basket he packed from the front seat. “It’ll be chilly, but it’s worth it.”

Crysanth follows him at a distance, a little bit awestruck and a little wary. He takes her down a path to the beach, going slowly so they don’t slip and fall. As they get closer, she sees that what she thought was black sand is actually large dark pebbles, each about the size of a peach stone. They roll and shift uncomfortably under her boots, and she bends down to scoop one up. To her surprise, they’re lighter than she expects. She tosses one in her palm, lobbing it back and forth between her gloved hands. 

“Some kind of volcanic stone, maybe?” she asks. Lawrence shrugs cheerily.

“You are asking the wrong guy,” he laughs.

They find a small spot to rest, a large piece of driftwood that has been pulled far enough on the beach to make a nice seat with a view. Crysanth perches on the blanket Lawrence spread over the log and smears the balm over her chapped lips. It’s been mixed with a kind of medication that makes her cheeks pucker at the taste. Lawrence smothers a snort at the look on her face, and she smacks him playfully.

He hands her a foil package and she unwraps it to find a steaming hand pie, smelling of spice and yeast. “Oh, divine, you  _ didn’t _ ,” Crysanth says with a gasp, and he nods toward the pie with a grin. She bites into it and has to stifle a moan; somehow, Lawrence procured her favorite filling, a meat and root vegetable only available back on the Kesh homeplanet. “You’ve been planning this for a while,” she says accusingly, and Lawrence shrugs her suspicion with an easy smile.

“You’ve had a lot on your plate,” he says, and glances towards the sea. They share a moment of quiet, Crysanth’s hand pie heating her face. Lawrence claps his hands with delight when he says, “Come on, finish that up quick, we can look to see if this planet’s got seashells!”

(This is where, when Crysanth remembers it later, she wishes she had thought to record it all. Bring a camera, or a sketchbook, or collect shells along the beach, or something— a way to prove to herself that it was all real. That it didn’t just exist in her memory, this fleeting happiness. That she got to see Lawrence smile, his real smile, one last time.)

They climb back up to the bluff when the light begins to fade. Here, the atmosphere doesn’t change color, not even at dawn or dusk— there’s just a strange darkness that settles over the air, as if it were permanently cloudy and overcast. Crysanth turns back towards the sea, her hand keeping her hat to the top of her head. The wind blows her skirt and coat around her, and she feels so light she could almost fly away.

“Do we have to go back?” she wonders.

“Crysanth,” Lawrence sighs. The joy within her immediately quells. She’s heard so many of his different moods and tones, but he’s never sounded like that before— so wavering, so heartbroken before he’s even begun.

Crysanth looks at his face, still clutching her hat. Every line, every grey hair, shows so prominently on his face. “Don’t tell me,” she says.

“So you already know?” He doesn’t look surprised— how could he? They’ve known each other for too long to fully surprise the other.

“ _ No _ , I don’t know, Lawrence,” Crysanth snaps, a scoff. “I don’t read minds, and I don’t know how to read yours. Whatever you’ve been saying in your sneaky little correspondences you’ve been sending behind my back, don’t tell me. I’d much rather prefer you leave me in a room with all those Nidean dolts for 24 hours.”

“You say the sweetest things sometimes,” Lawrence murmurs. “Do you want me to tell, or don’t you? Because either way you’ll find out eventually.”

“You’re not giving me a choice,” she says. His face creases humorlessly: bitter balm, bitter smile. The wind bites at her lips.

“I’m leaving, Crysanth,” says Lawrence, and the words tumble and fall to the ground. Crysanth closes her eyes. “Officially, I’ve put in a request to be reassigned, and I’ll be picked up when we reach the next waystation after this planet. I don’t have a reassignment yet, but I’ve got strings I can pull to make it happen quickly.”

“And unofficially?” she asks, because it’s always something that must be asked.

She hears him sigh. “I have a friend who has called in a favor. They have interests on the other side of the galaxy. If I leave tomorrow, I can make it in time.”

“And why couldn’t this favor have been fulfilled without a reassignment?” Crysanth demands. She looks back out over the grey ocean, endlessly moving, endlessly pulling.

Lawrence says, “It’s not a small favor.” 

A favor so big that even Crysanth’s name next to his will drag her into it. She presses her lips together tight. “What are you going to do, Lawrence?” she whispers. He doesn’t hear her.

“I hope that we can stay in touch,” he says. “You have been a great friend to me, Crysanth.”

“A friend,” she repeats. “You would leave me and expect me to call you friend.”

He says nothing, just looks at her with the deepest brown eyes she’s ever seen.

She kisses him there, then, in the plain grey air, gloved hands on both his cheeks. Her lips are slightly waxy from the balm; his are cool and dry. It lasts for a moment, and lasts for a lifetime. It is both chaste and desperate, and tastes like nothing at all. It is not their first kiss. It will be the last. 

When she pulls back, his eyes have slipped closed. “Don’t come back, Sovereign Immunity,” she says. “You’ll ask too much of me, if you ever come back.”

She leaves him standing on the shores of that dry planet, with the black stones and the loud ocean and the painful, lonely wind. The dance is over now. She does not look back. A different person would have also left him with the shattered pieces of their heart, but Crysanth Kesh’s heart is much stronger than anything Sovereign Immunity could put it through.

Crysanth Kesh’s heart will not ever break.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @millenniumbreak on tumblr & twitter, come say hi :]


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